Artificer's Bolt-Action Rifle (3.5e Equipment)

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This interesting weapon looks like a crossbow without the arms and a long barrel. It has a few runes along the barrel and on the trigger.

This is a weapon that is an alternative to the crossbow. It uses bolts and fires them as a heavy crossbow (1d10 Damage 19-20/x2 Crit), but only takes a move action to reload which provokes AoO's. The gun can use magic bolts and/or can be enchanted like any other weapon; treat as a crossbow. Weapon is considered Masterwork (+1 Attack). Need to be proficient with a crossbow to use, and the non-proficiency penalty is -2 instead of -4. All feats that apply to a crossbow, applies to the rifle.

Lore: A Gnome Artificer named Zyash wanted to be more useful in combat but his small light crossbow didn't do much damage. He wanted more power but still the accuracy and easy to use of the crossbow. So he then modified the crossbow and with some magic created the bolt-action rifle. Even though the bolt-action rifle is much better than the standard crossbow, the crossbow is still more widely used.